Satan’s Diary, Leonid Andreyev [the beginning after the end read novel .TXT] 📗

out for a walk in the garden. When you see Maria beneath the moonlight, 3,000 Magnuses will be unable to prove that this heavenly maiden is the same creature who.⁠ ⁠…”

I flared up:

“You are a disgusting scoundrel and liar, Thomas Magnus! If she has received her training in a lupanaria, then you, my worthy signor, must have received your higher education in the penitentiary. Whence comes that aroma which permeates so thoroughly your gentlemanly jokes and witticisms. The sight of your pale face is beginning to nauseate me. After enticing a woman in the fashion of a petty, common hero.⁠ ⁠…”

Magnus struck the table with his fist. His bloodshot eyes were aflame.

“Silence! You are an inconceivable ass, Wondergood! Don’t you understand that I myself, like you, was deceived by her? Who, meeting Madonna, can escape deception? Oh devil! What are the sufferings of your little, shallow American soul in comparison with the pangs of mine? Oh devil! Witticism, jests, gentlemen and ladies, asses and tigers, gods and devils! Can’t you see: this is not a woman, this is⁠—an eagle who daily plucks my liver! My suffering begins in the morning. Each morning, oblivious to what passed the day before, I see Madonna before me and believe. I think: what happened to me yesterday? Apparently, I must be mistaken or did I miss anything? It is impossible that this clear gaze, this divine walk, this pure countenance of Madonna should belong to a prostitute. It is your soul that is vile, Thomas Magnus: she is as pure as a host. And there were occasions when, on my knees, I actually begged forgiveness of this creature! Can you imagine it: on my knees! Then it was that I was really a scoundrel, Wondergood. I idealized her, endowed her with my thoughts and feelings and was overjoyed, like an idiot. I almost wept with felicity when she mumblingly repeated what I would say. Like a high priest I painted my idol and then knelt before it in intoxication! But the truth proved stronger at last. With each moment, with each hour, falsehood slipped off her body, so that, toward night, I even beat her. I beat her and wept. I beat her cruelly as does a procurer his mistress. And then came night with its Babylonian licentiousness, the sleep of the dead and⁠—oblivion. And then morning again. And again Madonna. And again⁠ ⁠… oh, devil! Over night my faith again grew, as did the liver of Prometheus, and like a bird of prey she tortured me all day. I, too, am human, Wondergood!”

Shivering as if with cold, Magnus began to pace the room rapidly, gazed into the dark fireplace and approached Maria. Maria lifted her clear gaze to him, as if in question, while Magnus stroked her head carefully and gently, as he would that of a parrot or a cat:

“What a little head! What a sweet, little head.⁠ ⁠… Wondergood! Come, caress it!”

I drew up my torn sleeve and asked ironically:

“And it is this bird of prey that you now wish to give to me? Have you exhausted your feed? You want my liver, too, in addition to my billions?”

But Magnus had already calmed himself. Subduing his excitement and the drunkenness which had imperceptibly come upon him, he returned to his place without haste and ordered politely:

“I will answer you in a moment, Mr. Wondergood. Please withdraw to your room Maria. I have something to say to Mr. Wondergood. And I would ask you, too, my honorable Mr. Toppi, to depart. You may join my friends in the salon.”

“If Mr. Wondergood will so command.⁠ ⁠…” replied Toppi, dryly, without rising.

I nodded and, without looking at Magnus, my secretary obediently made his exit. Maria, too, left the room. To tell the truth, I again felt like clinging to his vest and weeping in the first few moments of my tête-à-tête with Magnus: after all, this thief was my friend! But I satisfied myself with merely swallowing my tears. Then followed a moment of brief desperation at the departure of Maria. And slowly, as if from the realm of remote recollection, blind and wild anger and the need of beating and destroying began to fill my heart. Let me add, too, that I was extremely provoked by my torn sleeve that kept slipping constantly: it was necessary for me to be stern and austere and this made me seem ridiculous⁠ ⁠… ah, on what trifles does the result of the greatest events depend on this earth! I lighted a cigar and with studied gruffness hurled into the calm and hateful face of Magnus:

“Now, you! Enough of comedy and charlatanism. Tell me what you want. So you want me to surrender to that bird of prey of yours?”

Magnus replied calmly, although his eyes were burning with anger:

“Yes. That is the trial I wanted to subject you to, Wondergood. I fear that I have succumbed slightly to the emotion of useless and vain revenge and spoke more heatedly than was necessary in Maria’s presence. The thing is, Wondergood, that all that I have so picturesquely described to you, all this passion and despair and all these sufferings of⁠ ⁠… Prometheus really belong to the past. I now look upon Maria without pain and even with a certain amount of pleasure, as upon a beautiful and useful little beast⁠ ⁠… useful for domestic considerations. You understand? What after all, is the liver of Prometheus? It is all nonsense! In reality, I should be thankful to Maria. She gnawed out with her little teeth my silly faith and gave me that clear, firm and realistic outlook upon life which permits of no deceptions and⁠ ⁠… sentimentalisms. You, too, ought to experience and grasp it, Wondergood, if you would follow Magnus Ergo.”

I remained silent, lazily chewing my cigar. Magnus lowered his eyes and continued still more calmly and dryly:

“Desert pilgrims, to accustom themselves to death, used to sleep in coffins: let Maria be your coffin and when you feel like going to church, kissing a woman and stretching your hand